Walking to the Source

After putting our truck into four-wheel drive we crept up a washed-out and boulder-strewn mining road for several miles. I was amazed at the terrain that the truck could ease through. Finally, when we were confronted with a fast creek jagged boulders daring us to drive forward, we stopped and unloaded our backpacks.

For five days we hiked and camped, climbing into the high alpine plateau that is located about 18 miles from our house. It was time for a walk and to check out our water supply.

The Watson River runs by our Yukon Outpost, and is for much of the year our drinking water supply. During the spring runoff up until mid-summer when the river is clouded with sediments we fetch our water elsewhere.
The Watson, named after a 19th century Harvard biologist, collects rainwater and snowmelt from scores of miles of rivulets, freshets, seeps, creeks, ponds and lakes. Each segment of the watershed miraculously filters out sediments and with the help of gravity moves the water downstream.

Each day of hiking we paused at the many creeks we crossed and refilled our water bottles. And every night we camped close to a creek or pond. Based on the sign left by other beasts, we were not the only ones drawn to water.

In hopping from rock to rock over one lively, clear creek, I wondered how could it be that over one billion people dont have access to clean water? There is no shortage of clean water since it is constantly recycled through the water cycle. There never has been more water nor has there been less. More might be tied up in ice and more might be polluted by our actions or lack of them.

Now even those waters that melt away from snow and glaciers are not pure.
As the Watson snakes its way to the pitch in the rivers grade, where it passes our house, it becomes impure as it picks up traces of minerals and other elements. I find it amusing and ironic that bottled mineral water fetches a ridiculous sum simply because the consumer is given the illusion that this is a sort of virgin water. Interesting how we now have learned that so many bottled waters are simply bottled tap water and priced at costs that compete with oil prices.

Some of our neighbors in the Watson River valley go through the work of collecting river water and hauling it home as their preferred drinking water. Some claim it has a taste that is magical.

All of us should have the opportunity to make visual contact with the source of our drinking water. Admittedly waters clarity can be deceiving since it can hold within that clear state a plethora of toxins. There is a possibility that even this seemingly healthy water could be home to giardia, tiny protozoans that could upset my digestive system.

Over the course of our backpacking water inspection we surprised a young bull caribou at the waters edge. He splashed through the rocky creek, ran up the hillside and paused to pee as he looked back at the two-legged intruders. We never saw any caribou, moose or bear droppings in the water or right at the waters edge. Do you suppose they have a local wild ordinance that prohibits tainting the water with their wastes?

We flushed flocks of ptarmigan, wearing summer browns and winged in winter white, that seemed to prefer to congregate in the riverside willows.
After spying a pair of peregrine falcons coursing over the creek valley we understood that the water-loving willows provide a screen from raptor threats to the ptarmigan.

Clearly these waterways are pathways for wildlife and flora. Over the span of two days we found more than 10 shed moose antlers, and one fine set of bull caribou antlers. All of these were within a few feet of the water. Along another lively stream I collected shards of long mountain goat fur that had snagged on the riparian brush, and I tucked them into my pants pocket. I am reminded of a verse in Psalms: “He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast.”

Some of the freshets were shawled in dark blues from monkshood flowers, reddened by kings crow and creamed with carpets of arctic heather blossoms.

Flowers shawl the freshets. The dark blues of monkshood, the reds of kings crown and the creams of arctic heather provide the threads befitting a queens robe. Can there be a better, more efficient, and lovelier water filter? I doubt it.

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